Read "The Fascination of what's Difficult" by W.B. Yeats online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The fascination of what's difficult / Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent / Spontaneous joy and natural content / Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt / That must, as if it had not holy blood, / Nor on an Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud, / Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt / As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays / That have to be set up in fifty ways, / On the day's war with every knave and dolt, / Theatre business, management of men. / I swear before the dawn comes round again / I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.